Wry Martinis (17 page)
Authors: Christopher Buckley
A
UGUST
1, 1994
T
O
: T
HE
P
RESIDENT
F
ROM
: S
TROBE
T
ALBOTT
, D
EPUTY
S
ECRETARY OF
S
TATE
R
E
: T
URNING
A
ROUND
P
UBLIC
P
ERCEPTION
o
F
H
AITIAN
“L
IBERATION
”
It is imperative that we move swiftly to correct the growing public misperception that the
liberation
, as opposed to invasion, of Haiti is anything less than an
urgent national-security priority of the United States government.
In the face of national complacency about the Caribbean powder keg, we must demonstrate that Haiti represents a threat to
every American citizen.
The following proposals ought to be immediately implemented so as to insure that public opinion is squarely behind you when Operation Daydream becomes operational and the troops hit the beaches.
1. National Security Adviser Lake should hold a strictly off-the-record meeting with the press and reveal that the government has determined that the pilot of the Cessna that crashed into the White House last week was in fact a
former member of the Tontons Macoutes
, working on behalf of General Cédras, to decapitate the U.S. leadership. Though it is admittedly unusual for a middle-class white man from suburban Maryland to be a Tonton Macoute, strange things happen in time of war.
Your measured response would be along the lines of: “I can’t really comment on an ongoing national-security investigation. I’m just grateful that Hillary and Chelsea and Socks are safe. Meanwhile, I would stress that I do not hold the
fine Haitian people
responsible for the vile, cowardly actions of their military dictator.”
2. Director of Central Intelligence Woolsey should hold an urgent press conference to assert that “at this point we can’t say for sure one way or the other” whether
Haiti has nuclear weapons capable of reaching Miami, Atlanta, and Mobile.
He should stammer, avoid eye contact, and, if possible, sweat freely. (Surely CIA technical people can accomplish that much.) The briefing should be conducted against a backdrop of blown-up satellite photographs of Haiti, with a detail of the interior labeled “
LASCAHOBAS HEAVY WATER FACILITY
” and another labeled “
PETITE RIVIÈRE DE L’ARTIBONITE ICBM SITE
.”
3. Secretary Christopher should publish an Op-Ed piece revealing that, based on our interrogation of Haitian detainees at Guantánamo, the tide of so-called Haitian “boat people” is in fact the vanguard of a Haitian invasion of the American mainland. SecState can assert that, despite their scruffy and half-starved appearance, these are the highly trained élite of the Haitian Special Forces—so deadly, indeed, that they don’t even need conventional weapons to carry out their instructions to
sabotage vital U. S. military and civilian installations.
4. UN. Ambassador Albright should convene a plenary session of the Security Council and reveal the existence of a document entitled
Plan Vraiment Secret et Extraordinaire pour l’Overthrow des États-Unis et du Canada par les Dictateurs d’Haiti.
The Haitian ambassador will of course denounce the document as a forgery. Let him. Ambassador Albright’s position should be: “
Je suis prěte à attendre votre réponse jusqu’ à ce que gèle I’enfer.
” (“I am prepared to wait for your reply until hell freezes over”—a nice Stevensonian echo, which will connect this crisis with the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Americans faced down another Caribbean threat to the security of the United States.)
5. American tourists who had unpleasant pre-embargo experiences in Haiti should be urged to come forward with their horror stories
of lost luggage, stolen purses, turista, misplaced reservations, indifferent service, and beach boys urging them to buy marijuana. Your average American basically does not care one whit what happens in the Caribbean as long as it doesn’t interfere with his vacation. This aspect of the plan would therefore strike at the very heart, so to speak, of America’s soul, Caribbean-wise.
6. Delta Force, our most secret and élite military element, should immediately, and under cover of night, establish a third-rate medical college deep in the Haitian interior. The “students” would consist of short, young, gender-mixed, and, if possible, pimply Delta Force personnel. The Haitian military will of course attack the facility. The students, equipped with a state-of-the-art satellite telecommunications uplink, can tearfully appeal for U.S. military assistance, paving the way for thorough and enthusiastic public acclaim of your bold leadership.
—
The New Yorker
, 1994
LOGON
WELCOME TO TIMELINE AMERICA
PLEASE ENTER THE PASSWORD
ENTER DATABASE NAME
WHITEWATER CHRONOLOGY
AUGUST 1994-MARCH 1995
ACCESSING …
August 5, 1994:
Special independent counsel Robert Fiske denies report in
The Washington Post
that he is “bored out of his gourd” with the Whitewater investigation.
September 7, 1994
Congressman Jim Leach, ranking minority member of the House Banking Committee, announces that his investigators have discovered “something really, really interesting” on the Whitewater case but that he cannot reveal what it is for fear that once he does, people will stop paying attention to him.
September 28, 1994:
The Washington Times
runs a story saying that former U.S. assistant attorney general Webster Hubbell received collagen injections to enlarge his Ups. The story notes, “While so far there is no direct link between Whitewater and Hubbell’s lip injections, federal investigators are said to be ‘Very interested’ in the fact that Hubbel discussed having his lips enlarged with White House counsel Vince Foster, who subsequently committed suicide.”
September 29, 1994:
Hubbell strenuously denies having had cosmetic lip enlargements. “Lotta people in Arkansas got lips like this. And I wouldn’t even know how to spell
collagen.
”
October 16, 1994:
White House adviser David Gergen denies telling Maureen Dowd of
The New York Times
that Whitewater was “a dumb, Dogpatch-type thing between a couple of bubbas and a woman obsessed with making an easy buck despite trying to make herself into the second coming of Eleanor Roosevelt”; furthermore, he denies saying, “This is starting to make me look bad.”
October 17, 1994:
Hillary Clinton tells
Newsweek
that it was White House adviser David Gergen who, during the 1978 Renaissance New Year’s weekend at Hilton Head, suggested to the Clintons that they invest in the Whitewater Development Corporation.
October 18, 1994:
President Clinton announces that he is nominating David Gergen to be U.S. ambassador to Rwanda. “As much as I need him here,” the President says in a written statement announcing the appointment, “I need him more there.”
November 8, 1994:
Senate minority leader Robert Dole demands that outgoing Senate majority leader George Mitchell “stop thinking about girls and baseball the whole time” and start holding Senate hearings on Whitewater. Mitchell says Dole is “just jealous” over the fact that his fiancée is younger than Dole’s wife.
November 21, 1994:
A Current Affair
airs an interview with a man identified only as “Fred,” who says that on the afternoon of July 20, 1993, the day Vince Foster committed suicide, he saw a large man with “humongous lips” lurking on the grounds of Fort Marcy, the Civil War—era fort where Foster’s body was found.
December 4, 1994:
Clinton political strategist James Carville tells reporters at the Godfrey Sperling breakfast that Whitewater independent counsel Robert Fiske is a “motherf- - - - -.” Carville later confirms that he did call Fiske that but not in reference to Whitewater.
January 16, 1995:
An ABC/
Washington Post
poll shows that 78 percent of the American people no longer give “a rat’s ass” about the Whitewater scandal, and that an overwhelming 94 percent are “much more interested” by the fact that more than a dozen female Arkansas state employees have now filed lawsuits against President Clinton, alleging that he asked them to perform oral sex on him.
February 2, 1995:
Hillary Clinton, in an East Room press conference, says that she wishes the media would stop asking her husband about oral sex and concentrate on Whitewater, which, the First Lady says, “is much more interesting.”
February 10, 1995:
In his first interview since his resignation more than a year ago, former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum tells Sidney Blumenthal of
The New Yorker
that the reason he wouldn’t let Park Police investigators into Vince Foster’s office after Foster’s 1993 suicide was that he was afraid they would discover the bills for Webster Hubbell’s collagen treatments in Foster’s safe. “That’s what this whole miserable thing has been about from the start,” Nussbaum bitterly tells Blumenthal. “Webster Hubbell’s secret obsession with bigger lips.”
March 15, 1995:
Independent counsel Robert Fiske releases his final report on the Whitewater affair. While absolving President and Mrs. Clinton of any legal wrongdoing, it says that there was “still something kind of fishy about the whole arrangement between whatsisname, McDougal, the Madison Guaranty guy, and the Clintons.” It adds that the President probably exercised “questionable” judgment in asking so many female state employees to perform oral sex on him, even if he was governor at the time.
—
Esquire
, 1994
Refrain from
Breathing
To save money, airlines in the United States are circulating
less fresh air into the cabins of many airplanes.
—
The New York Times
C
ONFIDENTIAL
M
EMORANDUM
T
O
: C
HIEF
E
XECUTIVE
O
FFICER
,
A
ERO
A
MERICA
A
IRLINES
F
ROM
: S
ENIOR
V.P., R
EVENUE
E
NHANCEMENT
D
IVISION
(RED)
R
E
: F
URTHER
S
AVINGS
1. F
OOD
/B
EVERAGE
. Nutritional Research (N.R.) informs us that by adding a mixture of sawdust and polyethylene foam to the food—most of which is going uneaten anyway—we could cut costs significantly.
After extensive testing on focus groups, in which “passengers” were served “beef and “fish” selections consisting of equal parts of real beef or fish and the sawdust-polyethylene mixture, it was determined that only 3 percent noticed they were eating wood and plastic instead of our standard fare.
First and Business Class pose a challenge, as these are more sensitive palates, but N.R. feels that the problem can be solved by heavily spicing the dishes with inexpensive cumin and calling them, respectively, “Beef Bangalore” and “Fiery Fish.”
Bonus: Once the sawdust-polyethylene mixture reaches the stomach, it expands to five times its normal volume, greatly reducing passenger desire for expensive complimentary beverages. (See Tab A—Flight Surgeon’s Report on Effects of High-Altitude Consumption of Wood and Plastic.)
2. S
AFETY
E
QUIPMENT
. Studies have shown that a statistically insignificant number of seat-cushion PFDs (Personal Flotation Devices) are ever actually deployed. Their primary value is psychological, providing passengers with the illusion that they might survive in the event that the aircraft plunges into the ocean at five hundred miles per hour. Additionally, since 85 percent of our flight routes are over land, it might logically be asked: Why bother with flotation devices at all?